Unveiling Briar: New League of Legends Champion's Release Date, Lore and Abilities

“Everyone’s got a pillory of their own. Mine’s just on the outside.”

League of Legends fans are brimming with excitement as Riot finally revealed the release date of Briar, the latest champion to grace the LoL roster.

Are you friend or food?🩸 pic.twitter.com/8L8U5mjmxu — League of Legends (@LeagueOfLegends) August 30, 2023

Here is everything we know about the Hangry Jungler.

Briar’s Look

Riot has recently given us the final look for Briar and from her splash art, we can see her rocking white hair with a tinge of red and pink gradient at the tips. There is also a huge pillory with a red gem on top of her head, which is what her abilities are centered on. League of Legends fans, however, are particularly drawn to her fully white eyes, which supposedly represent "the sense of the full moon", and… her oddly positioned feet.

We wonder why.

An early look at Briar’s stance in the game.

Lead concept artist, Sunny Pandita, said Briar’s thick bottom is due to the fact that she is made from blood magic.

“It’s kind of subtle, but with Briar’s shape, I wanted to give her thicker legs and bottom-half with a more petite upper body, The idea here is that if she’s actually made from blood magic or living blood, she should be a little bit more bottom-heavy like an I.V. bag or the shape of a droplet of blood,” said Pandita.

A rendered portrait of Briar’s full-moon eyes and blood-stained hair. Maybe she isn’t that terrifying after all.

Briar’s Release Date

Briar is confirmed to be coming to League of Legends in patch 13.18. This patch will hit the live servers on September 13, so LoL fans will not have long to wait as Briar’s release is coming soon, very soon.

After Milio and Naafiri, who were released on March 22 and July 19 respectively, Briar will become the third League of Legends champion to be introduced this year.

She is also the first jungler to be revealed this season, which gives players even more reason to be excited.

Briar’s Lore

Just like Swain and Sion, Briar is also a Noxian champion. Created from hemomancy (blood magic), Briar's primary aim is to be a living weapon for the Black Rose.

After Briar failed her first mission, the Black Rose put her in a pillory. The pillory was locked by a hemolith — a gemstone with magical properties that helps restrain Briar and refocus her mind.

She was captured by Swain’s forces and confined to a cell after failing another mission.

Final art of the interior of the holding facility. Briar’s cell is at the end of the hall.

The pillory was meant to be a permanent fixture after she was confined to her cell. But after some time, Briar figured out how to loosen the hemolith and unlock it, and just like that, a hangry jungler was born.

Briar’s Abilities

Here are Briar’s full abilities, and they look like she is going to be OP.

As she has no passive health regen, she needs to feed constantly. Like a vampire, she only heals when she does damage (or consumes blood) to minions or champions, and as her HP gets lower, her self-healing will increase.

With Briar’s E, Riot stated that they realized Briar needed some kind of off-button for her W (Blood Frenzy) so that she had some more control over her fights. That way, every time a player popped her W, she isn’t obligated to commit to the full rampage and overextend.

Riot’s lead game designer, August Brown said that Briar is not a hard champion to play. “She does require some extreme awareness and good decision making. The best Briar players will be the ones who learn how to manage her frenzy state because she can easily get herself killed with her W and her ultimate if she isn’t careful,” he added.

What do you guys think, will Briar be OP? Will she be hard to master?